


Avatar Rising: Echoes of the Past

by leonidaslion



Series: Angelwings [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst, Dark, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-25
Updated: 2011-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 01:45:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ritual has been triggered, and now Sam and Dean have to deal with the effects ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean jerked suddenly, pressing back into the bed like he was trying to get away from something. Sam grabbed his brother’s shoulders and held him still. “Dean,” he said urgently. “Dean, it’s okay. You’re … you’re safe.”

 _God, I’m such a fucking liar._ Sam waited for Dean to relax again and then, cautiously, sat back in his chair. Watched, hands trembling a little, as his brother’s face twisted.

“Kill you,” Dean muttered fitfully, and then he was quiet again.

“How’s he doing?” Sam jumped at the sound of Bobby’s voice and then glanced back at the man as he came into the room.

“The same. Dreaming, I think.” Sam wanted to ask why they couldn’t wake Dean up and didn’t. He’d only get the same answer as he had the last four times he’d asked. Bobby didn’t know how to fix this.

 _And it’s all my fault._

Sam didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Bobby clapped him on the shoulder and gently said, “We don’t know that, Sam. You can’t beat yourself up over this.”

The hell he couldn’t. The demon had _told_ him this would happen: had told him _exactly_ how to trigger the fucking ritual. Sam had just been too slow—too stupid—to understand, and right now the yellow-eyed bastard was laughing at him.

 _The moon, waxing close to full in Missouri’s kitchen window, shining onto the demon: onto the smooth lines of the collar._

 _‘I’ll kill you. I swear to God, I’ll kill you before you touch him again.’_

 _‘Oh, I don’t have to: you’re going to do it for me.’_

Sam remembered reaching out for Dean: grabbing his arm. _Touching_ him. Remembered Dean turning, slow like molasses, and then Dean falling. Dean lying on Bobby’s porch like he was dead.

That had been two hours ago and, except for that one brief spasm before Bobby came in, Dean hadn’t moved since. Sam had tried to wake his brother up, of course: had been shaking him like an oversized rag doll when Bobby came out on the porch to see what was wrong. But something was holding Dean under as though he’d been drugged.

“Sam?” Bobby prodded as he sat there silently. “ _None_ of this is your fault, you hear me?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Sam slumped against the back of the chair, his eyes fastened on Dean.

Bobby heaved a deep sigh, but apparently could tell that Sam wasn’t in a very receptive mood. “Well, I’ve got some good news for you, anyway. I’m pretty sure we can rule out two of those rituals your friend told you about.”

Sam tore his eyes away from his brother. “Which ones?”

“Well, if it’d been Satan’s Kiss, either Dean’d be dead by now or we’d be sitting on Hell’s front porch. And it ain’t Kal Cthorak either. We would’ve seen some sign of possession, and there’s nothing.”

“Gioru Ztal, then,” Sam said dully. He was beginning to think they should charge rent on Dean’s soul: amount of things that had messed around with it, they’d make a fortune.

Bobby shook his head. “Not necessarily. Could be Rusi Matorum. Could be something else: something new.”

“It’s not Rusi Matorum,” Sam stated. “Dean’s not—he doesn’t have any psychic abilities or powers.”

“How do you know?” Bobby asked, reaching down to check Dean’s pulse.

“Because there’s never been any—he’s never—Look, I just know, okay?” Sam grimaced. There was a strange feeling in his chest: tense and anxious, like there was a fist coming at his face and he wouldn’t be able to dodge it. His palms were sweating. “Something’s—God, Bobby, something’s wrong.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Bobby said wryly.

Sam’s skin had come alive, all of it prickling hot and cold in alternating waves, and he realized that something wasn’t just wrong: something was _very_ wrong. “No, not that, it’s—” And then he realized where the feeling had to be coming from. It was the same kind of thing he’d felt when Dean had been attacked in San Francisco, only this was a thousand times worse. Dean’s hurt and fear radiating down that link between them.

“It’s Dean,” Sam said quickly. “He’s—”

Dean tossed his head back suddenly and his chest rose, every muscle in his body straining. His mouth fell open and he was panting: small, hurt whimpers slipping out with every breath. Sweat broke out across his skin as he thrashed around, caught in the sheets and growing more frantic by the second.

Bobby shifted his grip on Dean’s wrist and grabbed for his shoulder, trying to hold him still. Sam pushed out of his chair and shouldered Bobby aside. Put one arm across his brother’s chest and shoved down.

“What the hell’s going on?” Bobby demanded.

 _They’re hurting him, you dumb fuck: that’s what’s happening._ Sam bit back on the angry words and shook his head, lips pressed together. He focused all of his attention on his brother. Held Dean’s body as still as he could. Maybe he could use the connection between them: get through to his brother. Sam concentrated, making his thoughts sharp projectiles. Focused on Dean.

 _It’s okay, Dean. I’m here; you’re at Bobby’s. You’re safe; I’ve got you._

Dean went limp abruptly, and Sam thought for a brief moment that he’d gotten through. Then he realized that Dean was cold. That his chest wasn’t rising underneath Sam’s arm. Panicked, Sam pressed one hand against Dean’s neck and felt for a pulse. Almost collapsed with a surge of relief when he felt that Dean’s heart was still pumping. His pulse was slow, though: dying slow.

“Bobby,” Sam said, glancing up at the man, “We need to get him to a hospit—”

Dean’s body spasmed and Sam stumbled back in surprise, his own pulse skyrocketing. Dean was thrashing again, his breath coming fast and shallow: those soft, hurt sounds spilling from his lips.

“Get his legs!” Sam barked at Bobby, and then threw himself across Dean’s chest. Used his weight to keep Dean from throwing himself off the bed. It went on longer this time—for two eternal minutes—and then Dean went quiet again.

“What the hell is it?” Bobby demanded, starting to straighten.

“Don’t.” Sam shot the man a wild glance. Because it was going to happen again. Again and again, for God only knew how long. He could feel it singing down the link between him and his brother.

As Dean jerked into motion again, sweating and sobbing brokenly, Sam felt the first hot tears slip down his cheeks. _Dean_ , he thought. _God, Dean, I’m here. I’m right here._ But Sam knew that, wherever Dean was, he couldn’t hear him.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Dean opened his eyes, he was lying on his back on Bobby’s front porch, staring up at the overhang. The light was all wrong: twilight of creeping violet and sullen red. God, how long had he been out? And why the hell had Sam left him lying here?

“Sam?” he called, sitting up cautiously.

“He’s a little busy right now,” a familiar voice rumbled to his right. Dean scrambled to his feet, heart beating too fast and sweat breaking out across his skin.

John Winchester was sitting in the rocker on Bobby’s porch, feet kicked up onto the rail. His hands were folded into his lap and he was smiling at Dean lazily, but his eyes were eager. Sharp as knives and bile yellow.

“What is it with you things and my dad?” Dean grumbled, backing away.

The demon frowned. “‘Us things’? You haven’t been cheating on me, now, have you? Seeing other interested parties behind my back?” The look on its face was a caricature of hurt: its voice full of malevolent warning.

“You know how it is: shop around, find the best offer.” Dean glanced toward the door to Bobby’s house, wondering if the devil’s trap still existed in this place. Because he wasn’t in South Dakota anymore, that was damned sure: not the South Dakota he was used to, anyway. He wondered if it mattered: if the devil’s trap would even work on something like this.

The demon’s eyes narrowed and suddenly there was the sensation of something fumbling around in Dean’s brain: fingers twisting in grey matter and scratching the inside of his skull. Dean’s breath rushed out and he dropped to his knees, hands pressing against his head on either side. It hurt like hell, but that wasn’t the worst part. No, the worst part was the sensation of being violated, of being spread open and inspected—all of him, everything he was, every thought he’d ever had.

The feeling was gone as abruptly as it had come, leaving Dean gasping and with the ghostly impression of something filthy and oily coating the inside of his mind. He fought down the urge to throw up, dropping forward to curl his hands against the wood porch. Steadying himself. Jesus, what the hell was that?

“Anzu,” the demon muttered. “Might have known.” It beamed at Dean beatifically. “Don’t worry, it won’t be bothering you again.”

Dean groped after words and couldn’t find any. That yellow-eyed bastard had been inside him, had been in his fucking _head_. It shouldn’t have been able to do that, not without possessing him first. Dean stiffened at the thought, and his pulse pounded in his skull. Had it? God, was _that_ what this was?

“Simmer down, boy. You’re not my type.”

“Get the fuck out of my head!” Dean snapped, coming to his feet again and balling his hands into fists. He didn’t know if he could hurt the son of a bitch, but if it kept this up much longer, he intended to find out.

The demon smirked. “After all the trouble I took to get here?”

It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. “San Francisco,” Dean said, his mouth dry.

“Mmm. You know, you’re smarter than you look.” The demon dropped its feet onto the porch in a sharp movement, and the wood where they hit burned black. Smoke curled up, and the smell that hit Dean wasn’t that of a campfire, but of burning flesh. He gagged on it, stumbling back against Bobby’s railing as the demon stood.

“What do you want?” Dean was starting to panic: starting to lose his tenuous grasp on his emotions. Unarmed and alone and fucking helpless against something like this.

“Oh, come on, Dean. Haven’t you figured it out by now?” It surged toward him in a blur. Drew to a stop right in front of him.

Dean could feel the heat radiating off of it. Smelled sulfur and the metallic odor of blood. He expected to hear Sam’s voice yelling his name: expected to feel the first cuts of power inside his chest. But that had happened years ago, and there was something different in the way that the demon was looking at him now. Something hungry. Back then it had just been pissed off.

Dean swallowed and didn’t say anything. The demon grinned at him and leaned closer, pressing near enough that its unnatural heat was baking into his skin, and its breath was warm on Dean’s ear.

“I wanna go to Disneyland,” it whispered, and it wasn’t his father’s voice anymore. The body pressing against his rippled and shrunk, curving. Hair brushed the side of his face: soft, red curls. A new scent had overlaid that sickly sulfur smell: a musk like incense, or perfume.

“I want _you_ , Dean,” the demon breathed in its new, soft voice, and then it licked along his neck in a long, slow swipe.

Dean shoved forward, panicked, and the demon let him. Its laughter chased him as he bolted into Bobby’s house, diving straight for the man’s stash of sanctified objects. Dean could hear it coming after him as he flung the cabinet open. Heard the screen door squeak and then bang shut. He turned to face it with a heavy wooden cross in one hand and a bottle of oil in the other and froze.

Max was standing there, naked, with one hand on her hip and her lips quirked in a smile. No, not Max. Max didn’t have yellow eyes. Max was dead.

“What’s wrong, Dean?” the demon pouted. “Did I come on too strong?”

Dean lifted an arm that felt like lead, holding the cross in front of him. “Back the fuck off.”

A red line appeared across the demon’s throat, and blood spilled across its breasts: dripped lewdly onto the floor. Blood flooded out from the cross Dean held as well, a warm rush across his palm, and the bottle of oil exploded in a haze of red. He swore and dropped the cross, hands covered in a thick, crimson film.

The demon took advantage of his horrified distraction to hem him in against the open cabinet. Leaned against him, still gushing blood. Dean pulled away. His hands curled around the edge of a shelf, and his eyes dropped shut. He made a small, pained noise in the back of his throat when the demon chuckled. It slid its hands up underneath his shirt.

“Come on, Dean. Don’t you miss this? Wasn’t it a rush? Feeling their lives running out under your hands—and that sweet sound of their final breaths. Like fucking angels singing, wasn’t it?”

“Shut the hell up, you son of a—”

“No, I suppose not,” the demon continued lightly. “That pesky conscience of yours. It’s such a shame, really: to waste such talent. Because you were good at it, weren’t you, Dean? You were a fucking artist.”

“No.” But the lie was weak: guilty. He _had_ been good at it. Too good.

“How many were there? A hundred? Two? Or am I being too conservative?” It raked nails down across his chest, not breaking the skin, but hard enough to hurt. “Do you remember their names? No? Bet you remember their faces, though. How they looked, how they begged …”

Dean was panting like he’d been fighting: was sweating and trembling minutely. Images flashed against his closed eyelids almost too fast to see: things he hadn’t thought of for over a year. Blood pouring from deep gashes, leaking from shallower ones; the gleam of exposed bone; muscles sliced and shredded; eyes bright with fear and pain, filmed over in shock and despair. He felt the shield of numbness that lay between him and what he had done—that shield that he knew was only partially of his own making—start to fracture.

“Stop. God, _please_ , don’t—”

“God’s not here, Dean. But since you begged so pretty …” It backed off, hands pulling out from under his shirt.

Dean made himself open his eyes—didn’t want whatever was coming now to take him by surprise—and saw that the blood was gone. So was Max. It was his father standing in front of him again, with a slight smile playing over his lips. Dean wasn’t sure which form was worse. But the strain was gone: that feeling of distance firmly back in place. He felt more like himself again.

The demon beamed at him. “How are you feeling, Dean-o?”

Dean’s stomach twisted and a stab of bitter anger shot through him. “Don’t call me that, you son of a bitch.”

Those yellow eyes danced with unconcealed mirth. “Anger’s one of the seven deadly sins,” it remarked. “Better watch yourself.”

“Fuck you.” Dean pushed himself away from the cabinet. “Do what you came to do and get it over with.”

“So eager for your own destruction.” The demon paced around him in a slow semi-circle. “You want it that much?”

“Do I have a choice?” Dean shot back.

“Not really.” It moved, a blur of darkness, and Dean found himself being spun around and shoved into the wall. The demon was a heavy heat against his back: one hand on Dean’s shoulder, the other wrapped around his throat. Dean waited for it to tighten its grip, to snap his neck or crush his windpipe, and it didn’t. Its thumb stroked across his jugular possessively.

The fear and anger were tangled in an anticipatory mess in his gut, and this _waiting_ , the feel of it touching him like that: like he _belonged_ to it. Like Azrael had touched him, after the pain. Stroking through the broken skin on his back, petting him ... Dean slid his mind away from the memory.

“Just do it already,” he growled.

Its breath rushed out in a laugh, moist against the back of his neck. “I’m not going to kill you, Dean.”

“Then what the hell do you want?”

“I’m here to help you realize your full potential: to help you remember who you are. I’m here to set you free.”

That sounded in no way good. Dean pressed his hands against the wall and shoved backwards, trying to fight free. The demon chuckled and shifted the hand on Dean’s shoulder to the center of his back. Pushed him forward. The hand that had been on his throat shifted up and gripped his hair, painfully tight.

And there was that flash again: shuddering on the floor while he came back from another punishment. Azrael’s hand on his head, taloned fingers tangled in his hair. He couldn’t stop the small, trapped noise from slipping past his lips.

“Mmm. You can’t stand this, can you, Dean? Too close for comfort, nowhere to run …”

Dean heaved back again, heart beating too quickly, and the demon was like a stone wall, holding him still. It was laughing in his ear with his father’s voice: mocking him as he struggled. As he tried to get some leverage to strike back at it. He couldn’t shift his weight, couldn’t breathe with face pressed into the wall. The world was narrowing, collapsing in on him. God, he couldn’t _move_ and now he could almost hear Azrael whispering to him. Whispering ‘mine’ and ‘perfect’ while it cut into him. While it caressed his face.

“Shhh,” the demon murmured. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Yeah, right,” Dean spat. He tried whipping his head to the side, out of the demon’s grip, and it slammed him face-first into the wall, hard enough that his vision exploded in a starburst of coppery-red.

“Not more than I have to, anyway.”

Dean rested against the wall, focusing on the pain. Letting it chase away the memories that had been threatening to overwhelm him. “I’m gonna kill you.”

“Not today, Dean. Today we’re just gonna talk. Maybe make a little deal.”

That startled a laugh out of him, and he said, “You think I’m gonna make a deal with _you_?”

“You will.” It sounded so sure that Dean’s breath hitched. “Because eventually, you’re gonna get tired of what’s behind door number two.” It pulled back suddenly, bringing him with it, and spun him around. Hooked Dean’s arms behind his back before he could bolt and held them there, its hands around his wrists like manacles.

Bobby’s was gone. Instead, they were in a white room with two red doors. _Trust a demon to be literal like that_ , Dean thought. Then the yellow-eyed bastard tightened its grip and he winced as it ground the bones in his wrists together.

“Pick a door,” the demon said, amused.

“Fuck you.”

“Okay, I’ll pick one for you.” The door on the right dissolved into the wall and a small glass table materialized in the center of the room. There was a steel collar sitting on top of it, innocuous as a snake.

Dean had worn something similar once, and Christ there was just no getting away from the memories, was there? Because it had been Azrael who had had the fucking thing made for him. Who had kept him chained like a dog after he’d tried to run away a third time. Who’d closed it around his neck even as he lay sobbing on the table, trying to forget what it felt like to have someone else’s hand inside his chest, crushing his heart. Dean tried to scramble back out of reflex but the demon held him in place.

“Here’s the deal,” it hissed. “You put the collar on, and we don’t have to go through the door.”

There was no fucking way Dean was going along with that, no matter what was on the other side of that red door. Not even if the demon was planning on taking him down to Hell itself. He couldn’t.

“No,” he said hoarsely.

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” the demon purred. “So stubborn. But that’s all right: we’ll work on that. We’ll bleed it out of you.” And then the red door wasn’t just opening, it was coming toward them, and there was darkness inside. It swallowed Dean, drank him down, and then he could see again. He looked around with wide eyes, and barely noticed that the demon wasn’t restraining him anymore.

He was standing in the middle of a basement. No, not _a_ basement: _the_ basement. Azrael’s basement, complete with its … toys.

There was someone chained to the wall in a position Dean was intimately familiar with: a naked, skinny kid with brown hair. And then the kid lifted his head and his eyes were black oil. His face was familiar.

“Chris.” Not the demon’s real name, but the name Dean had known him by: the name he had used when he introduced himself.

Chris’ lips peeled back in a snarl. “Winchester,” he growled, and jerked forward against the chains.

“I see you remember Malthus.”

Dean jumped as the demon strode past him, still wearing his father’s form. It stepped up to Chris—to Malthus—and put one hand on his chest. Malthus’ head went back and he howled, voice dropping deeper than humanly possible.

For a moment, Dean saw what he really looked like. White, leprous skin hanging loose on a boney frame. Sickeningly long arms and legs, like a spider’s. Too-wide mouth with too-thin lips, and multiple rows of tiny, sharp teeth. Only the eyes were the same: inhuman and shining black. Then the demon lifted its hand from Malthus’ chest and the glimpse was gone.

“Malthus is being punished,” it said, glancing at Dean. “He instigated the … unfortunate display ... in San Francisco. And he’s very lucky that you weren’t damaged too badly before I arrived.”

“What is this?” Dean made himself ask. Because as a punishment—as an alternative that the demon thought he’d ‘get tired’ of—it didn’t suck. The yellow-eyed son of a bitch could torture his flunky as long as he wanted, as far as Dean was concerned.

“This is door number two.”

“Hate to break it to you, pal, but you really need to work on your strong-arm tactics.” _Great, Winchester, antagonize it._

But the demon only grinned at him. “Oh, but you haven’t heard the best part.” It circled over to a table of knives and ran its hand over them lovingly. “Someone is going to be punished here, and someone is going to wield the knife. You get to decide who does what.”

“Really? Cause I vote for Malthus over there beating the crap out of you.”

“Oh, but I’m not on the menu.”

Dean frowned, suddenly cautious, and didn’t say anything.

The demon lifted a serrated knife and brushed its thumb across the flat of the blade. “You see, either you are going to take one of these lovely toys and carve him up, or you’re going to take his place. And he can do what he’s been wanting to do for years.”

Dean stood there silently.

“It’s not a difficult decision, Dean,” the demon purred. “One of you is going to suffer tonight. Be a smart boy and pick out a blade.”

“You don’t want me hurt,” Dean said, edging back a step. “You just said so.”

The demon shook its head. “Haven’t you figured out by now that none of this is real? Oh, it’ll _feel_ real, all right, but in the morning? When you wake up? Not one little scratch. Not a nick.” It smiled at him brightly. “I could kill you over and over here, and you’d wake up feeling bright and bushy-eyed.”

Oh Christ. Dean couldn’t go through something like that again, couldn’t put himself back under the blade.

 _Give me the knife._

But he couldn’t say it.

Malthus was watching him hungrily, straining at the chains. The thing was a demon, was responsible for drugging Dean and kidnapping him and starting this whole mess in the first place. Was apparently responsible for the beating he’d taken as well. Malthus was going to mess him up if Dean gave him a chance. Was going to make him relive the nightmare.

It wasn’t as though Dean hadn’t done this kind of thing before: hell, he’d been contemplating carving Bobby up only a few days ago. Cutting on a demon should be no problem at all. The easy choice—the sane one—was obvious.

But it wasn’t the right choice.

Because the very thought of cutting someone for the sole purpose of hurting them was more terrifying than the prospect of pain. Yeah, Dean had done it before, when Azrael had forced him, and he’d considered doing it to Bobby. But that had been for Sam: to keep Sam safe. The one time he’d done it on his own—had sliced into that incubus in Oregon—he’d been sick after. He felt nauseated just thinking about it now. Thinking about the kind of man he’d become to be able to do something like that.

More importantly, though, it was clear that the yellow-eyed demon wanted him to make that sane, easy choice. And there was no way in hell Dean was going to give that bastard what it was after. Even if it meant his wrists in the chains. His blood on the knife.

“You’re not going to be smart about this, are you?” the demon asked as he hesitated.

Dean kept his mouth shut. Maybe if he didn’t say anything, he could bypass the whole issue. Of course, he’d forgotten that the demon had free access to his brain, which meant that it heard the unspoken _‘fuck you and the brimstone you rode in on.’_

“Like I said: stubborn.” The demon snapped its fingers and suddenly Dean was against the wall, chains heavy around his wrists and ankles. He was naked. Vulnerable. And thinking about it objectively wasn’t the same thing as feeling cold metal against his skin. Dean slipped his eyes shut and tried to calm down. _It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real._

“That’s okay,” the demon murmured, and a hand on his face made Dean open his eyes, startled. The demon smiled, patting his cheek lightly. “You can always make the right decision next time.”

 _Next_ time? Dean could feel himself panicking: it was getting difficult to control his breathing, to slow his heart. He could see Malthus over the demon’s shoulder, practically dancing with impatience and holding a bone-handled kukri. Azrael had loved that knife, had used it to peel back Dean’s skin and—

Dean shut his eyes again and shuddered. He didn’t want to see it coming. Didn’t want to know what Malthus was doing to him.

The yellow-eyed demon ran its hand across his throat, caressing, and then Dean could feel it moving away. “Make him scream for me,” it said.

Dean managed to keep his mouth pressed together at first. Malthus was too eager. He’d heard too many of Azrael’s stories. Had forgotten that Dean was only human now: that he’d lost all of the extra endurance and regenerative abilities Azrael had relied on to keep his body functioning. Dean figured that he lasted about a minute with Malthus dragging the kukri through his insides before his heart stopped and plunged him into darkness.

When he came to again, Malthus was cursing furiously and the demon was laughing. Dean’s chest was whole and unmarked again. Back to square one. He wondered how long it would take Malthus to realize that his new toy broke easily. Wondered how long he would manage to keep quiet.

He wanted to laugh when it turned out that the answer was the same for both questions—that the answer was not long at all—but he was too busy screaming.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean woke up to the sun shining in his eyes and his brother draped heavily across his chest. His skin was slick with sweat and his muscles felt unstrung: loose and set with a bone-deep ache. He blinked, confused, and then everything came back to him and his stomach heaved. He pushed his exhausted muscles into motion, shoving at Sam.

“Get off me,” Dean choked out.

Sam jerked up, startled. His hair was matted to one side of his head and judging from the dopey expression on his face, he’d been fast asleep. “Dean, thank God. How’re you—Dean?”

Dean could hear his brother trailing after him as he stumbled out of Bobby’s spare room and into the bathroom. He collapsed in front of the toilet and proceeded to throw up. The porcelain was cool under his hands: slick and smooth and it didn’t feel anything like the chains he’d been clinging to moments ago.

When Dean’s stomach realized it didn’t have anything left to purge, it settled a little. He didn’t move, though. Just knelt there, feeling the twinge of overworked muscles: minor, negligent pains that felt almost soothing compared to what had come before.

Sam’s hand dropped on his back and Dean leaned away, mumbling, “Don’t touch me.” He couldn’t handle the feel of someone else’s hands on his skin, not while he was still coming down from the … dream? Hallucination? Whatever it was, the demon had been right: it had felt real.

Sam jerked his hand back as though he’d been burned, and his voice was choked with guilt when he said, “Okay. Sorry.”

Dean gave himself a few minutes before he forced himself to get up. He flushed the toilet and moved over to the sink on shaking legs. Dunked his head under ice cold water and shivered as it washed the sweat away. He could hear Sam talking softly with Bobby behind him and didn’t bother trying to listen in. Watched the water swirl down the drain and was still faintly surprised that it wasn’t red.

When Dean lifted his head and turned around, Bobby was gone. Sam was clenching a towel in both hands, and now he offered it to Dean. Dean took it wordlessly and started drying himself off. By the time he had finished, Bobby was back and holding out a glass filled with an amber liquid. Dean traded the towel for it and, despite Sam’s disapproving frown, tossed it back. The whisky burned his throat, warm and welcome.

“Fucking hell,” Dean said faintly as he handed the glass back.

“How are you feeling?” Bobby asked. There was a careful stillness to his face that bellied his easy tone. Dean noticed that the man had dropped the towel on the floor—was keeping one hand free—and realized that there had to be a gun tucked at the small of his back. Not that Dean blamed him.

“Sore as hell,” he answered bluntly. “What happened?”

Sam’s jaw worked and he dropped his eyes, which was a dead giveaway that he thought all this was his fault. Like Dean didn’t already have enough on his plate without having to worry about Sam beating himself up for yet another disaster that he wasn't responsible for.

Bobby glanced at Sam before answering, “Ritual got triggered somehow. It knocked you out. We tried to wake you up, but you were under pretty deep. Then after about two hours, you got a little agitated. Sam and I had to hold you down so you wouldn’t hurt yourself.”

Which would explain why Dean had woken up with Sam sprawled on top of him. And was probably also the reason his muscles were so sore.

“A few hours ago, you quieted down,” Bobby continued. “I tried to get Sam to leave you alone, but …” He shrugged.

“It wasn’t over,” Sam mumbled. “I could—they were still hurting you.”

Dean flinched. “How the hell do you—no, never mind.” He remembered Sam sneaking glimpses into his mind the last time something had decided to fuck around with him. Still, that had been in dreams, while Sam was sleeping. This was new. Dean frowned. “How much did you see?”

“I didn’t.” Sam’s head came up, and his eyes were wide and sincere. “I didn’t see anything, Dean. I just … I could feel it.”

“You—” Christ. Dean felt sick again. Bad enough that he’d had to go through that, but to know that Sam had been feeling it with him, that he’d felt Malthus cutting into him …

But Sam was shaking his head earnestly. “No, I didn’t—I mean—damn it, this is all coming out wrong! I could feel that something was wrong, like with San Francisco, and somehow I knew that they were—were hurting you, but I didn’t—”

Dean calmed at Sam’s words: Sam knew, but he didn’t _know_. Dean could still keep the worst from him. His little brother didn’t need to know the details. Hell, _Dean_ didn’t need to know the details. “S’okay, Sammy.”

“Hate to seem insensitive, Dean,” Bobby broke in. “But I’ve gotta ask: are you safe?”

Dean looked at Bobby and the man was as tense as a bow-string, free hand tucked out of sight: probably on the butt of whatever gun he was packing. Dean wanted to reassure Bobby, but didn’t know if he should. He felt fine—uncontaminated—but that didn’t necessarily mean he was.

“I don’t know,” he confessed.

“Of course you’re—” Sam cut himself off at Dean’s sharp glance. Glowered down at his feet.

Bobby only nodded. “Okay. Mind if we check, then?”

They checked. Bobby doused him with holy water: gave him a shot of the stuff to drink, despite the fact that Dean was fairly positive the man had already poured a little in the whisky. No steam this time, and Dean wasn’t sure if he should take that as a good sign or a bad one. Dean held a cross, recited bits and pieces of the Bible he’d memorized, and ran through an entire exorcism on his own. Easily stepped out from behind the circle of salt Bobby laid around him.

Finally, the man sat down in a chair and grunted. “You seem clean.”

Dean eyed the gun that Bobby had set down on the stack of books next to him. “If I’m clean, how come you’re keeping that out?”

“Just a precaution.” Bobby adjusted his cap and leaned back. “Seem and are ain’t the same thing.”

“Good point,” Dean agreed, ignoring Sam’s snort of disbelief. “Okay, so let’s assume I’m good: what the hell did they grab me for?”

“I dunno,” Bobby admitted. “But if you want to sit down and tell us what happened while you were under, maybe we can figure it out.”

Dean sighed and settled himself on one end of Bobby’s worn green couch. Sam immediately hurried over and dropped down next to him, close enough that Dean twitched against the armrest reflexively. Jerk turned into such a girl when he was worried.

Dean scowled and shoved at his brother. “Dude, move over.”

“Sorry,” Sam muttered. He inched away and sat with his leg twitching, attention riveted on Dean.

Dean knew that Sam was only worried about him—he got that, really—but the whole … touching … thing was a little problematic. He hadn’t been a real tactile guy before the business with Azrael, and these days even casual touches made his heart race. If Sam kept this hovering shit up, Dean was going to have to have a talk with his little brother about personal space. He focused on Bobby, blocking Sam out, and started to talk.

The version he gave them was short and heavily edited. Dean left out all mentions of Azrael: of Max and the people he’d killed. He knew that he was hindering Bobby’s attempts to help, but if the man found out about the whole Angel of Death business, he’d probably shoot Dean where he sat. He was also vague to the point of omission on the subject of what had happened once he’d taken Malthus’ place in the chains. Knowing the ins and outs of his last torture session wasn’t going to help anyone.

When he finished, Bobby and Sam were giving Dean looks so identical it would have been funny, if he’d felt up to humor of any kind. Looks that said they knew he was leaving things out. Only difference was that Bobby seemed resigned, while Sam was so resolute it was almost scary. He was obviously going to corner Dean about this later, which was fine as far as all that Azrael shit went, but Sammy could just suck it up and deal when it came to Malthus. The pain was Dean’s to deal with, and he wasn’t sharing.

“That it?” Bobby drawled.

“Yup,” Dean said, voice bright with false cheer.

Sam glared at him but didn’t say anything. Biding his time.

“You ready to admit this isn’t about Sam?” Bobby prodded.

Dean shifted uncomfortably. It didn’t make sense: he’d heard it from the demon itself, and he still only half-believed it. There was no reason it should want anything from him. He’d been broken: was damaged goods. Sam was the one with the power; all Dean could offer the demon was a scarred gun hand.

“Dean.” Sam’s low growl was a warning.

“Yeah, all right? The demon wants something from me: is that what you two want to hear?”

“The whole truth’d be nice too, but for now I’m willing to settle for that.” Bobby smiled at him faintly, and it took the sting out of his words. “Now, here’s what I’m guessing—guessing only, mind. That ritual seems to have been intended to give the demon access to your head. It’s not a permanent link, though, or something would have popped up when we were checking you out.”

He paused, waiting for Dean’s tentative nod of agreement, and then continued, “You looked like you were sleeping before, and there’s no reason for us to assume you weren’t. There’s a long tradition of demonic influence through dreams, and I’d guess that’s where you were: in your head, dreaming.”

“You’re saying it’s gonna be there every time I go to sleep,” Dean said tonelessly. Sam shifted next to him, practically radiating guilt, and Dean pressed his lips together. He was going to have to deal with whatever Sam was agonizing over pretty soon.

“Not necessarily,” Bobby hedged. “But I’m not gonna lie to you: it’s a possibility.”

“Peachy.”

“There are things we can try. Wards, charms. I’ve got some here: can dig up a few more.”

“Thanks.”

Bobby shrugged and then leaned forward, hands dangling between his knees. His eyes were wary. “I’m gonna ask you something, Dean, and I don’t want you to get upset, and I don’t want you to lie. If I’m gonna keep helping you, I want the truth on this one, you hear me? And don’t think you can just lie anyway and I won’t notice: I practically helped John raise you, and I know all your tells.”

Oh hell, with a lead in like that, this couldn’t be good. Dean wondered if this was it: if he was going to have to tell Bobby about Azrael, about what he’d done. He tried grinning at the man, but he suspected it was a little weak. “Fire away.”

“Do you have any idea what this thing wants from you?”

Relief rushed through Dean and he relaxed. Easy question after all. “No.”

“You didn’t take anything from it? Stumble across any information it might want?”

Dean shook his head wordlessly.

Bobby’s gaze shifted to Dean’s right. “Sam?”

Sam’s eyes were on his hands, which were clenched together tightly in his lap. He didn’t look up at the sound of his name, but Dean could tell from the way his brother’s shoulders tensed that he’d heard. Knew that Sam was trying to avoid the question: to postpone answering. Which meant he was trying to think up a good lie. The skin at the back of Dean’s neck prickled uncomfortably.

Bobby frowned. “Sam.”

Sam shifted his weight a little and grimaced. Dean leaned over and punched his brother in the shoulder, which brought Sam’s head up and around to him. Scowling, Sam rubbed at his arm. “What the hell, Dean?”

“Dude, if you know something, spit it out,” Dean snapped.

Sam gave him a look that Dean read as ‘that’s real rich, coming from you’, and then returned his attention to Bobby. “I don’t know anything, not really. But …” He cleared his throat and then said in a rush, “I had a dream when I was at Missouri’s: about the demon. I talked to it.”

And Sam got on Dean’s case for not sharing. “You what?” Dean growled. Fear mingled with anger in his mouth, leaving a sour taste.

“I was gonna tell you when I got here, man, but I didn’t have a chance.” But Dean could tell from the way Sam wouldn’t meet his eyes that his brother was lying. Little prick had never planned on telling Dean about that particular conversation. Oh, they were so having words later. Sam wiped his hands on his jeans: shot Dean a nervous, imploring look. Asking Dean to forgive him, to just let it go, and okay, maybe they were having words _now_.

“So, how’d your little chat go?” Dean asked, his words clipped and hard. “You have fun? Talk about the weather? Yankees’ shot at the pennant this year?”

Sam’s face furrowed and he squared his chest. “Damn it, Dean, it wasn’t like that.”

“No? How was it then, Sammy? You wanna paint me a pictu—”

“Dean! Sam!” Bobby barked. Dean shut up and pushed back into the couch, scowling. He sensed rather than saw Sam doing the same thing next to him.

“Now, I know things’re a little tense right now,” Bobby continued sternly. “But sniping at one another isn’t going to help, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean muttered, and heard Sam echo him.

“Okay, then.” But Bobby’s expression was cautious as he nodded. “Sam, you said you talked to it: did it tell you why it’s after Dean?”

“Not specifically, but that collar Dean mentioned was part of my dream too. And the demon said some—some stuff. I don’t think it’s about something Dean has or knows: it’s about something Dean is. Something he can do.”

Dean couldn’t help a snort of laughter at that. “What, it needs a mechanic?”

Sam turned to him, exasperated. “Dean—”

“What I can _do_ , Sam? That’s a fucking joke. Two years ago I couldn’t even order a freaking cup of coffee on my ow—” He snapped his mouth shut suddenly, and his heart leaped up into his throat. Oh shit, he hadn’t meant to say that. Not in front of Bobby. Now Bobby was going to ask him about it, and what the hell was Dean supposed to say?

Sam looked as terrified as Dean felt, but Bobby only said, “No offense, Dean, but you tend to sell yourself a little short. Sam, you think you’re reading this thing right?”

Sam still looked rattled by their near miss, but his eyes on Dean were challenging. “Yeah, I do.”

“Okay, then. Based on what Anzu said, and what you just told me, Sam, I think I’m gonna work under that assumption. And until you can come up with a better explanation, Dean, you’re gonna do the same.”

Dean forced his jaws open long enough to grunt, “Fine,” and then shut his mouth again. If he didn’t say anything, he couldn’t get himself in trouble.

“Now,” Bobby continued, “I’m gonna go put some coffee on and fix us some breakfast.” He stood and then pressed his hands to the small of his back, stretching. Gave Dean and Sam a shrewd look when he’d finished. “I imagine there’s some stuff you two want to talk over that you don’t want me to know about.”

Dean held himself still, but Sam might as well have painted Guilty As Charged across his forehead in big red letters. He listened as Bobby moved away: heard the man stop in the doorway.

“I understand you two are nervous as hell about telling me whatever this is, but I want you to know that it’d be okay to. I’m here for you boys, whatever you need. No matter what, you hear?”

Sam didn’t say anything, and neither did Dean, and eventually Bobby sighed and left the room. Dean glanced up at the hallway the man had gone down. A dull, bruised ache had settled high in his ribcage.

 _No, Bobby_ , he thought. _If you knew about this, you’d hold a gun to the back of my head and put a bullet in my brain._ And God help him, but there was a part of Dean that wanted him to.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam waited until he could hear Bobby moving around in the kitchen before hissing, “Okay, what did you leave out?”

Dean blinked over at him as though his thoughts had been elsewhere, but his face cleared quickly, going straight from confused to angry in about three seconds. “Oh, no, Sammy. You first. Go ahead and tell me about this dream. I mean, you said you were going to, right? Now’s your chance.”

Sam shifted underneath the weight of his brother’s eyes. Dean was really pissed off, and he didn’t even know that Sam had triggered all of this yet: that Sam was responsible for Dean being tortured. Again. As if he hadn’t already been through enough.

“I’m waiting, Sammy,” Dean snapped.

“I already told you and Bobby what—”

“Nice try, Pinocchio. Now I want the unabridged version.”

“Dean, I—”

“I’m not kidding here, Sam. Full disclosure works both ways.” Dean’s face darkened as Sam sat there silently, trying to figure out how to avoid this conversation, and then he pushed himself to his feet. “Fine. I’m gonna go help Bobby.”

“Wait!” Sam’s voice was hoarse. His throat felt dry: cracked with guilt and responsibility.

Dean turned around and stood there, looking down at him. His expression was opaque. “You got something to say?”

“I’ll tell you, okay? Just—” God, this was difficult. Sam grimaced. “You have to promise you won’t freak out because I’m not going to let anything happen, all right?”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Gotta tell you, if that was supposed to be reassuring, it really isn’t working.”

“I know, I’m—I’m sorry.”

Dean rolled his eyes and dropped back down onto the couch. “Just spit it out, man. I’m not gonna flip.”

Okay. Sam could do this. Dean would be okay with it; he’d been through worse. He and Sam would work through it together, and the demon could go fuck itself. But it was still awkward and uncomfortable as hell to say the words.

“The demon said—it said you were going to be its hound. Said you were going to—to make the world bleed. It mentioned the stuff Azra—Dean? Dean, you promised you wouldn’t flip.”

Dean had leaned forward and dropped his head between his legs. He was making these strange chuffing noises, and Sam reached for him, alarmed. Before he could touch his brother, though, Dean twisted his head to the side and Sam saw that he was laughing.

“Dean?” he said uncertainly.

“That’s just fucking perfect,” Dean snorted, sitting up again.

“Um …”

“Oh come on, Sammy. You’ve gotta admit it’s a little funny: both sides of the damned war want me to kill for them. I must be real good at it, huh?” His mouth twisted ironically.

“Azrael wasn’t—”

“I’m not talking about Azrael,” Dean interrupted. His face was suddenly sober, his voice soft.

Oh yeah. Sam had almost forgotten about Seraphiel, and the offer it had made to Dean. An offer Sam was pathetically glad his brother had declined. He fumbled for something to say—something that would make it all right—and came up empty handed. Because really, it would never be all right, and he was just going to have to accept that.

Even before San Francisco, the best Dean could have hoped for was “good enough.” Now what did he have to look forward to? One night with the yellow-eyed son of a bitch and Sam could already see signs of regression.

Dean was less guarded, nerves and fears too close to the surface for him to hide. He’d slipped up with Bobby—had said too much and now the man knew for sure that they were hiding something. And, although he probably didn’t realize it, Dean had been holding himself differently ever since he woke up: like he was a heartbeat away from either running or pounding something’s face into the ground.

 _My fault_ , Sam thought again. _It’s my fault Azrael got to him in the first place, and it’s my fault the demon got a hold of him. I triggered the ritual. I did this to him._

“I can hear you thinking from over here,” Dean said. “Just tell me what’s got your panties in a bunch: might as well lay it all out there at once and get it over with.”

And here it was, suddenly and unavoidably: confession time. Sam dropped his eyes to the floor. He couldn’t watch the knowledge blossom on Dean’s face. Couldn’t see what this latest betrayal did to his brother.

“The demon told me that I’d be the one to give you to it,” he admitted.

“Dude, you know it was just messing with you, right?”

Sam wanted to laugh at the gentleness in Dean’s voice. Wanted to shake Dean and yell at him until he understood that Sam didn’t deserve it: that Sam had Fucked Up and deserved to be strung up from the nearest lamppost. “No, it wasn’t,” he insisted. “It told me the trigger for the ritual it put you through—it _told_ me, Dean, and I still did it.”

“What are—”

“The moon was waxing in my dream—getting fuller. And then, when we were talking, I told it not to touch you. It said that it wouldn’t have to: that I’d do that for it.” Sam chanced a glance up and Dean’s face was impassive.

“Don’t you see? It was full moon, Dean. It must have set the ritual to trigger anytime I touched you once the moon was full again, and I—on the porch, when I grabbed your arm, I—”

Understanding flashed through Dean’s eyes, but instead of angry or hurt, he only looked tired. “Don’t, Sam.”

Sam’s hands clenched uselessly on his knees. “Don’t wha—”

“Don’t do that thing you do.” Dean gestured at Sam with one hand. “That guilt thing,” he clarified. “It wasn’t your fault, man. The demon played us.”

How the hell could Dean say that? Didn’t he understand what Sam was telling him? “I should have known, Dean; I should have—”

“What, Sam? You should have _what_? Cause I’m pretty sure that unless you decided to go all Rogue on me, we’d end up touching eventually. We’re around each other 24/7. It was gonna happen sooner or later.”

“I could have left,” Sam argued, and knew as soon as the words were out of his mouth that going there had been a mistake.

Dean’s face closed instantly, and his eyes shuttered. He stood up and paced away from Sam, his body rigid.

Sam edged forward on the couch. “Dean, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Fuck you, Sammy,” Dean muttered. His had his back toward Sam, but for once Sam didn’t have to see his brother’s eyes to know what he was feeling. He could hear it in Dean’s voice: could see the hurt scorching the air around his brother. “You want to leave, go ahead.”

Sam wondered if he could fuck this up any more: he kept saying the wrong things, kept hurting Dean. “You know that’s not what I meant,” he pleaded.

“Do I?” Now Dean turned around, and the emptiness in his eyes made Sam’s stomach turn over. “You think I don’t know why you visit Ann? I’m sorry for crowding you, man, but I’m not—I’m not gonna be the one to go. You hear me, Sam? I can’t. I tried, but if you’re—if you want out of this, you’re gonna have to be the one to leave.”

“It’s not like that, man,” Sam said urgently, pushing off the couch. He stood in front of it awkwardly and shoved his hands into his pockets so that he wouldn’t be tempted to reach out: to offer comfort where it wasn’t wanted. “I don’t want to ditch you, Dean. I’m not going anywhere.”

Dean’s throat worked, and his face tightened painfully, as though he was swallowing broken glass. Then he gave a stiff nod. “Maybe you should.”

Sam obviously hadn’t heard that right. “What?”

“Maybe you should go. I’m not—” Dean clenched his jaw and then finished, “I’m not safe.”

Sam’s skin prickled into goose bumps. “Don’t be an asshole, man, you’re fi—”

“I mean it, Sam.” Dean’s breath hitched and Sam flinched at the sound. It brought back too many memories of trying to soothe his brother back down from another nightmare. Of trying to convince Dean that he could heal: could be a person again, and not just the broken shell Azrael had made of him.

“Because if we can’t keep that yellow-eyed son of a bitch out of my head,” Dean continued roughly, “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to—” He broke off, grimacing as though he hadn’t meant to say that: hadn’t meant to let the conversation get this far. Not that he’d needed to say it aloud. Sam could read desperation in every line of his brother’s face.

“Long enough for us to fix this,” Sam said firmly. He ignored the fear pulsing through his own body: he couldn’t afford to be weak now, when Dean needed his support. “And I’m not leaving.”

Dean shuddered. “Sammy—”

“This isn’t negotiable, man.” Sam managed a slight smile. “You’re stuck with me.”

Dean shook his head, edging back a few steps, and Sam clenched his fists. Damn it, Dean couldn’t do this to him. Dean couldn’t give up, couldn’t go under. Not now, not after everything Sam had done to piece him back together: to find his brother under all the scar tissue Azrael had left behind. The words came out automatically, but he knew as soon as he’d said them that they were the simple truth.

“You go under, I’m going with you.”

Dean’s face went white as Sam’s words hit him. He stiffened and then, a second later, he was charging across the room. Sam watched his brother come and didn’t move. Let Dean sweep his feet out from under him and drop him to the floor. Dean came down after him, his hands fisting in Sam’s shirt tightly enough that the bunched fabric cut into the back of his neck.

“You stupid shit,” Dean ground out. “Don’t you _dare_ —”

“This is my choice, Dean,” Sam said emphatically. “You can’t make it for me.”

Dean lifted Sam a little so that he could slam him back against the floor. “The hell I can’t! I’m not gonna let you throw your life away—”

Sam found himself getting angry. “What?” he yelled back. “So you’re the only one who gets to be a self-sacrificing asshole?”

“Damn straight I am,” Dean growled. Then his face was breaking, and his grip on Sam’s shirt changed so that he wasn’t pulling anymore. He was clinging, like Sam was going to disappear the moment he loosened his grip. “Sammy, please. Don’t do this. Don’t let me pull you down. I can’t—I can’t do that to you.”

“You better not give up, then.” And Sam hated himself for saying it: hated the way the words slammed into Dean like gunshots. Hated the way Dean’s eyes widened impossibly large as his breath hitched out. But he knew that this was the only way to get through to his brother. Dean wouldn’t fight for himself, but he sure as hell would fight for Sam. He’d fight for Sam until it killed him.

 _Sorry Dean_ , Sam thought, watching as his brother struggled to put himself together again. As he shored up the crumbling walls that were keeping him going. _I’m so sorry, man, but I’m not losing you. I can’t._

“You boys okay?”

Sam twisted his head a little and saw Bobby standing in the doorway, looking at them cautiously. There was a drawn gun in the man’s right hand, and Sam realized with a shock that Bobby wasn’t looking at _them_ , he was looking at _Dean_. Watching him the way a man’ll watch a strange dog he’s not sure isn’t rabid.

“We’re fine,” Sam said quickly. Dropped his eyes back to his brother. “We’re fine, right, Dean?”

Dean’s face was closed: empty. But Sam could read the temptation in his brother’s eyes. The temptation to make a sudden move: to shift his grip up to Sam’s neck just long enough to push Bobby over the edge. Take the bullets and end it. Dean trusted Bobby to make the shot and not hit Sam.

Sam grabbed his brother’s wrists tightly enough that Dean winced. He knew there’d be bruises there later in the shape of his fingers.

“You go, I go.”

“You selfish son of a bitch,” Dean hissed. Sam just looked at him, and finally Dean let his body relax, all at once, and slowly climbed to his feet. Sam held on, forcing Dean to haul him up as well. Shielding his brother with his own body.

“I said we’re fine, Bobby,” Sam repeated steadily. He held Dean’s eyes with his own, trying to keep his brother calm and still.

“Okay, then,” Bobby said, and Sam heard him thumb the safety back on his gun. “Breakfast is on, whenever you’re ready.” He shuffled back down the hall to the kitchen.

Sam released Dean’s wrists and then shoved him hard. “You ever _think_ about that again and I swear to God I will tie you up and force feed you tranquillizers!” he snapped.

“Just like old times, huh, Sammy?” Dean shot back, his face twisted mockingly. Then he turned around and walked unhurriedly in the opposite direction from the kitchen. Sam heard the front door open and then slam shut. He stood in the middle of Bobby’s living room and refused to let the burn in his eyes turn into tears. He’d already cried enough over this.

 _I’m saving you, Dean_ , he thought coldly. _I’m saving you whether you want me to or not, you ungrateful bastard._

When he went in to breakfast, Bobby didn’t ask where Dean was—had heard the door slam as well as Sam—but he set a plate aside for him just the same.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean struggled to stay awake, despite the weight of two new amulets on his chest, and the dream catcher hanging above him. Despite the circle of salt around the bed, and the fact that Bobby used up his reserves of holy water so that Dean could take a bath in the stuff before turning in.

Because Dean was positive that none of it was going to work. The demon was too strong: too powerful. It had been planning this for years—maybe since that night in the barn—and it already knew everything they would do to try and stop it. And if Dean had to go through that again: if he had to go through that fucking door …

If Sam wasn’t being such an asshole about this, Dean wasn’t sure that he’d have the strength to say no to the collar. Even though he knew that putting the thing on would have less than pleasant results. Pathetic, really: just one night back in that basement and he was already caving. The demon must be pretty hard up if it wanted to take Dean on as some kind of hired gunman.

So he was going to avoid the problem by not falling asleep. He was going to sit in the bed and drown himself in coffee instead. And although he’d worn himself out with that little talk with his brother earlier, and with avoiding Sam for the rest of the day, so far Dean’s plan seemed to be working. He was wide-awake: he was full of energy. Could go without sleeping for days.

Then the clock on the wall slid over to midnight and Dean dropped into the dream like a stone.

He only knew he’d failed when he turned his head and Bobby’s spare room fell away into a wide, white space. There was a wall nearby with a red door, and a glass table with that damned collar on top. Dean’s heart kicked into high gear.

“Dean,” the demon purred from behind him. Dean could tell from its voice that it wasn’t wearing his father’s face anymore. For a few seconds after it strolled into view, he wasn’t sure who it was mimicking, but then the memories started to come back to him.

Run down apartment in New York City. Small, ferret-faced man smelling of nicotine and stale alcohol. The man had died slowly, in a puddle of his own urine and shit and whining for someone called Sally. Funny, that Dean remembered all that and couldn’t seem to come up with the man’s name.

The demon smiled broadly at the recognition in Dean’s eyes. “I see you remember Terrance.”

Dean clenched his jaw shut, wasn’t going to give it the satisfaction of responding. The demon circled toward him.

“I have a present for you,” it hummed.

Not good not good. Dean forced a wide grin. “Gee, and it isn’t even my birthday.”

His breath caught as it hit him: a smell. Something sweet and moist and rotten. Whatever was giving off that reek was behind him. Dean really, really didn’t want to know what it was. Didn’t want to look at it. But the demon was moving that way, and there was no way he was letting that son of a bitch out of his sight. Dean turned around and gagged.

There was a … a lump of flesh and bone and blood on the floor. Twitching.

The demon strolled up to the lump and kicked it. The lump let out a piteous moan and a piece of it unfolded, wavering up toward the demon. A twisted, skeletal arm trying to ward off another blow. And Dean was going to be sick any second now.

“What the hell is that?” he choked out.

“This?” The demon kicked the lump again, catching it on the upturned wrist, and there was the snap of breaking bone. The lump howled. “This is what happens to things that try to poach off my property.” The demon glanced at Dean meaningfully.

“I don’t—” he started.

“ _Please_ …”

Dean recognized the voice that floated up from the lump: had heard it in Bobby’s living room, thundering at him from a mouth that no longer looked anything like his father’s. Anzu.

“Told you you didn’t have to worry about it anymore,” the demon commented gleefully. It nudged Anzu with one foot and the demigod shuddered, pulling in on itself. “It really should have known better.”

Then the demon was coming toward Dean, its face glowing with dark humor. Dean squared his shoulders and stood his ground. Managed not to flinch when the demon came to a stop less than a few inches from him, radiating a line of heat along his skin.

“You haven’t thanked me for your present, Dean,” it breathed.

A hoarse bray of laughter slipped from Dean’s lips. “You want me to thank you for beating up the neighborhood bully so that you can fuck with me yourself?”

“The torture’s just the wrapping,” the demon murmured. “Anzu’s the gift, Dean. With the proper training and a little housebreaking, it’ll make a fine pet.”

Anzu made a high pitched, frantic keening, and then it was dragging itself toward them, using its broken hand to pull itself across the floor. Dean backed away but the demon only glanced over its shoulder. It watched Anzu slid toward it impassively. There was a line of red and brown fluid tracing its path when Anzu finally came to a stop at the demon’s feet. It reached its broken hand out to the demon imploringly.

“Don’t,” it gurgled. “Please, don’t give me to him.”

The demon chuckled. “Don’t you think it’ll be fun, Anzu? You and Dean: think of all the wonderful things he’ll come up with for you to do together. Think of the games you’ll play.”

Anzu keened again. “No, no please! Mercy! I didn’t touch him, I was only going to bring him to you, don’t let him have me, let me stay here, give me back to the Tartaruchi, anything, just don’t—”

The demon turned away from Anzu’s panicked words. Looked at Dean, those yellow eyes twinkling. “Anzu doesn’t seem to like the idea of being your pet very much.”

Yeah, and that right there was just about the most fucked up and frightening thing that had ever happened to Dean, including that shit with Azrael. Because according to Bobby, Anzu knew things: hidden, secret things. That it was this frightened of him, of whatever ‘games’ it thought Dean would be interested in … Well, whatever Anzu knew about Dean could just stay hidden, as far as he was concerned, because anything that made a Sumerian demigod beg to stay with its demonic torturers rather than go with him was right there at the top of the list of 'Shit Dean Doesn’t Need To Know'.

“Just put it out of its misery,” he muttered.

“Oh, I don’t think so. You may not appreciate it right now, but you’ll be thankful for this little gift soon enough. Unless you had a different pet in mind? Azrael, perhaps? Your father?”

Dean’s stomach turned over. “You sick bastard.”

“Really? I’m not the one Anzu here is pissing himself over.” The demon pulled its leg from Anzu’s weak grasp and descended on Dean, backing him up until he bumped into the glass table with its loathsome contents. The demon’s breath was hot on his face: its eyes holding Dean’s, preventing him from looking away. He tried to edge back further and his fingers brushed against the metal chain. He bit his tongue.

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” the demon pressed. “What you’re capable of? What you really are?”

“I’m not—whatever you want, I’m not gonna do it,” Dean whispered. “I’ll kill myself first.”

“You kill yourself, you kill Sammy,” the demon returned easily. Its yellow eyes burned with cruel amusement as Dean’s breath rushed out in a sharp exhale. “Oh, yeah, I know all about your little chat today. You think he was bluffing, Dean? You really think Sammy won’t pry the gun from your stiff fingers, slide it in his own mouth? You think he’ll be able to taste you on it when he does?”

“Stop it.” He barely breathed the words, but the demon heard him.

“Sweet, really, how much you two care about each other. Such a deep connection.” Its tone was mocking. “You think if I cut you, Sammy’d bleed?” It leaned even closer, its lips brushing against his ear.

“Think he can hear you screaming right now?”

“Fuck you.” Dean’s heart was jackhammering in his chest, and his mouth was filled with the acidic tang of fear.

The demon snorted and pulled back a little. “What happened to all those sarcastic remarks, Dean? Where are those defensive walls? You’re not breaking already, are you? I’ve just gotten started.”

“Honey, I can go all night.” It just slipped out automatically, and Dean grimaced, expecting retaliation.

But the demon only chuckled, amused, and somehow that was worse. “There’s my boy.”

A weak tug on Dean’s pant leg made his glance down. Then he was swearing and nearly tripping over himself getting out from between the demon and the table: getting away from Anzu, who reached after him pitifully.

“Please, Winchester,” it called. “Kill me, please. Kill me now, before—”

The demon scowled in annoyance and Anzu folded in on itself. For a second Dean could hear it screaming, and then there was silence. Anzu was gone: only that red-brown smear on the floor, like a slug’s trail, remained. Dean didn’t bother asking what had happened to it because he already knew. The demon had sent it back to the Tartaruchi: to Hell’s torturers, if that wasn’t redundant.

“Now, where were we?” the demon mused, trailing one hand over the edge of the metal collar. “Ah, yes, we were going to make a deal.”

But seeing Anzu like that—seeing Anzu terrified of him, of what he might do to it—had strengthened Dean’s resolve. And then there was Sam: the stupid, selfish bastard.

“I don’t think so,” he said lightly. “The vacation condo in Maui is tempting, but the health plan’s a little lacking. I mean, Blue Cross? Come on, man, you’re gonna have to do better than that.”

The demon shook its head in mock disappointment. “You do realize what that means, Dean.”

Dean didn’t glance at the red door. He didn’t need to: he could feel its malevolence seeping into his skin like radiation. “Bring it on, bitch. Let’s party.”

The demon’s grin widened. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”


	4. Chapter 4

It took Sam a while to realize what had happened, but in his defense he was a little distracted by trying to keep his brother in one piece.

After that first night, while Dean dreamed he lay as still as stone: still as the dead ( _don’t go there, Sam_ ). Like clockwork, every morning at seven Dean opened his eyes again and then rushed into the bathroom.

When he’d calmed down a bit, he filled Sam in on his latest conversation with the yellow-eyed demon—or at least on part of it, because Sam had the feeling that Dean was heavily editing what went on in there. Maybe for Sam’s peace of mind, maybe for his own. The morning of the second day, for example, Dean told Sam they didn’t need to worry about Anzu anymore, but wouldn’t go into detail. And he wouldn’t talk about what happened after he went through the red door at all, except to say that it was a different demon each time— _‘guess I pissed some of them off. Yellow-eyed bastard says there’s a waiting list.’_

After that, Dean passed on breakfast and headed straight out to the junkyard. Spent the morning and early afternoon trying to fix up some of the clunkers Bobby was storing back there. Bolted down a quick lunch sometime between one and three before finally edging into the living room, where Sam spent his own days researching with Bobby. Dean managed to spend about half an hour going through books before his nerves drove him back outside, where he could lose himself in simple manual labor.

He stayed out long after it grew too dark to see, as though he could hold the night off by ignoring its arrival. He tried not to sleep. Drank cup after cup of coffee and tried jogging in circles, tried pinching himself, told Sam to punch him if it looked like he was nodding off. But every time, exactly at midnight, he toppled over no matter what he was doing. Watching the demon drag his brother down, back into the dream, was like watching him die, but Sam forced himself not to look away.

Around two o’clock in the afternoon on the tenth day, Sam dropped the book he was poring through and got up. He strolled into the kitchen and warmed up two cans of soup on the stove. Set the table for two and then, while he was setting the second bowl down, paused.

He frowned down at the soup, running his thumb along the underside of the bowl’s lip. He didn’t know why he’d made two helpings when he wasn’t really hungry in the first place. And even if he had been hungry, why the hell had he set two places at the table?

Then Dean pushed open the back door and strode into the kitchen, wiping sweat and grease from his face.

“Hey, is that Chickarina, man? Nice.” Dean dropped down at the place setting across from Sam and dug into the soup in front of him. When Sam continued to stand there, staring at him, he looked up and asked, “Aren’t you gonna eat?” He shot a confused look at the bowl Sam was still half-holding on top of the table.

Sam lowered himself shakily into a chair. “Yeah,” he muttered. If Dean noticed Sam was unusually quiet during lunch, he didn’t mention it. Just sat there and shoveled soup into his mouth and talked about gaskets and pressure gauges and that he thought he finally had the problem with the damned carburetor nailed down. He waited in the kitchen while Sam rinsed off their dishes and put them in the dishwasher, then followed him out into the living room.

“Think I’ll try that monk’s journal today,” Dean commented as he dropped into an easy sprawl on the right hand side of the couch. “I saw it laying around yesterday, thought it looked—hey, thanks, dude.”

Sam’s smile was weak as he passed his brother the small, leather journal he’d hunted down that morning. The one he’d put next to his own pile, even though it had nothing to do with the line of research he was currently pursuing. His head was spinning as he sat down next to Dean. He picked up a book and pretended to read it.

Suddenly, the last week and a half wasn’t adding up right anymore. Sam kept putting two and two together and getting six. Getting ‘we’re so fucking screwed’.

He could feel the guilt rising, threatening to drown him, and fought it down. All he had right now were suspicions: he didn’t know anything for sure. Didn’t even know if this thing he hardly dared consider went both ways. He had to find that out first before he started panicking. Had to approach the problem logically.

Sam made himself wait a few hours after Dean had headed back out to the cars. Then he ran his hands over the pages of the book he’d been leafing through. Slid his eyes closed, shutting out Bobby and the living room and the million and one fears jostling for his attention. He focused on his brother, on that place inside of himself that had told him when Dean was in trouble.

Then he thought about how nice it would be to head out for dinner tonight. Get a few hamburgers at Benji’s, toss back a few beers. Thought about how he was going to go stir crazy if he didn’t get out of here for a few hours.

Less than ten minutes after he had started concentrating, Sam heard the back door open. Bobby glanced up, perplexed, as Dean strolled back into the living room hours ahead of schedule. Sam, unsurprised, just sat on the couch with a sour, sick taste in his mouth and lead in his stomach.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean said, running a hand through his hair. “I was thinking. Maybe we can go out for dinner tonight. Get a few hamburgers at Benji’s, toss back a few beers.” He shook his head with a rueful grin. “I’m gonna go stir crazy if I don’t get out of here for a few hours.”

Not just the idea or the intent, but the exact same words. Sam thought he might throw up. He sat still and was very, very careful not to think about how panicked he was.

But either his expression was off or something slipped out anyway because Dean tilted his head and his eyes narrowed. “Something wrong, dude?”

“I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.” Sam was careful to think it too. Concentrated on how hard he’d been working: that he was tired.

Dean’s forehead smoothed out, but his face fell a little. “Oh. If you’re too tired, we can just—”

“No, it’s cool,” Sam said hurriedly. “You wash up; I’ll be ready by the time you’re done.”

Dean brightened. “Probably a good idea. Never know when you might run into a sweet prospect, if you know what I mean.”

Sam’s groin tightened suddenly, reminding him that it had been at least three months since he’d gotten laid. Then Dean left the room and the frantic need was gone. Dean’s need, not Sam’s. Fuck.

“What’s going on?” Bobby asked.

“What do you mean?” Sam blinked over at the man and wondered what he was supposed to do now. Wondered what the range on this thing was. Wondered how much of his present freak out Dean was picking up on.

“Sam,” Bobby said pointedly, “You look like someone just shot your best friend.”

Oh God, if Bobby could see it, then how the hell was Sam supposed to keep it from Dean? Because he couldn’t tell him, not now. Couldn’t tell his brother that he really _was_ responsible: that it was Sam’s fault Dean spent seven hours every night being tortured. Sam dropped his head forward into his hands. Heard Bobby get up and didn’t move.

“Sam.” Bobby’s hand dropped on Sam’s shoulder, a comforting weight. “What is it? You find something in here?” He tapped the book sitting on Sam’s lap.

Sam shook his head. “Not in there.” He looked up, fighting to keep his thoughts quiet: trying to project calm reassurance. Splitting his thoughts like this was already giving him a headache, which meant he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. Damn it. “Bobby, I fucked up.”

Bobby’s mouth tightened in a frown. “What’s wrong?”

“I—” God, how to tell him without telling him everything else? Without telling him about Azrael? “A couple of years ago, Dean and I ran into some trouble. It was pretty—pretty bad. I did something to get us out of it: a ritual. It worked, but it had, uh, side effects.”

“What kind of side effects?” Bobby asked. There was no judgment in his eyes, for which Sam was grateful, and his voice held only concern. _If he knew …_ Sam shoved the thought away.

“It bound us together—our souls. I only found out about it a few weeks ago at Missouri’s, and Dean—Dean doesn’t know at all.”

“You haven’t told him?” Now Bobby sounded upset.

Sam grimaced and wrapped his hands around the book in his lap. “I haven’t really found the right moment.”

“You’re piss-scared he’s gonna hate you for it,” Bobby said bluntly.

“I—maybe a little,” Sam admitted. “But that’s not really the issue right now.”

Bobby’s face said that he very much doubted that, but he only asked, “What is, then?”

“I think that’s how the demon’s been getting at Dean. I think it knew about the link, and it used that ritual in San Francisco to force it open. You were right Bobby: it must have been Rusi Matorum, or something like it.”

“You think the demon’s using you like a conduit,” Bobby said, eyes widening. He moved back to his seat and dropped into it. Pulled off his cap and rubbed at his head worriedly. “Would that work? Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know. But the link’s different. It’s _been_ different since that ritual triggered; I just didn’t realize it until now.” Sam leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Haven’t you noticed I always know when Dean wants to come in for lunch? That I’ve been passing him books without him having to ask for them?”

A slight twisting of Bobby’s lips told Sam that the man had noticed, and brushed it off for some reason. “Sam, if you’re right about this, then I can’t help you,” he said reluctantly. “Demons, I know. The kind of shit you’re talking about is out of my league. You’re gonna need to go talk to whoever you got that ritual from.”

Which meant going to see Ann. Great, another thing for Dean to hate Sam for. Except that he wouldn’t because he was Dean. Oh, he’d bitch a little for show, but inside he’d just accept this further blow with a shrug and then shove the hurt down with the rest of the pain he was hiding.

“Bobby,” Sam said suddenly as a thought occurred to him. “What if this thing has a distance limit? Maybe if I can get far enough away from Dean, the demon won’t be able to reach him.”

Bobby fixed him with a stern look. “Dean’s not going to like that idea.”

“I don’t care!” Sam snapped. “This is killing him, Bobby. Hell, I can _feel_ it. And if it’s my fault, if I can stop it by leaving, then—” He choked to a halt, fighting to swallow past the lump in his throat.

Bobby heaved a sigh. “Look, why don’t you talk to the person you got the ritual from first. Maybe they can—” He stopped as Sam’s phone rang.

Sam considered ignoring it and then ground his teeth together and pulled it out of his pocket. The name on the display made his chest tighten uncomfortably. Suddenly he felt small: like a cog in some huge machine whose purpose he didn’t know.

“Ann,” he croaked out, answering the phone.

“Sam? Are you—you sound strange.”

Sam's laugh was hollow. “Things’re—things just got a little more complicated. I was about going to call you.”

“What happened?”

Sam laid everything out for her tersely, acutely aware that it didn’t take Dean all that long to shower and change. That his brother could saunter out any moment and catch him at this, and then where would they be? Overhearing him talking about the link on the phone with Ann wasn’t the way Sam wanted Dean to find out about it.

When he’d finished, Sam asked, “Is it possible? Do you think I could be right about this?”

“It’s possible. God, it’s _probable_ , from what you’ve told me.” She paused and then, her voice thick with remorse, said, “Sam, I’m so sorry. If I’d known that it would have side effects, I wouldn’t have—”

“Don’t,” Sam interrupted. “It’s not your fault: you didn’t know. And it worked. It saved Dean.”

Ann was silent for a moment and then she said, “It isn’t your fault either, Sam.”

 _Yes, it is._ “Ann, I can’t—look, Dean doesn’t know yet, and I don’t want him walking in on this. Can you dig that book up again? Maybe we can find something in there to—”

“I can do you one better,” she answered quickly. Her voice brightened. “God must really like you, Sam, because the guy I was calling you about can probably help with this too. Better than I could, anyway.”

 _Yeah, God loves me all right_ , Sam thought sourly. But he only cleared his throat and asked, “What’s his name?”

“Corey Trankard. The man’s an expert on ancient rituals—human, angelic, demonic. You name it, he probably knows something about it.”

Sam’s heart gave a hopeful skip. “Where can I find him?”

Ann gave him the address, and then added, “I called ahead and told him you were coming, so he should be expecting you.”

“Ann, I don’t know what—Thank you. God, thank you.”

“I just hope he can help. And Sam? Take care of yourself, will you? You won’t do any good if you run yourself ragged.”

“I’m fine.”

“Pardon my French, but that’s bullshit and you know it.” Ann sighed. “Look, Sam, if you—”

“I have to go,” Sam broke in, glancing toward the hallway. “He’s coming.” Sam couldn’t hear anything, but if he shut his eyes—if he concentrated—he knew he’d be able to see his brother. Be able to see Dean shrugging into his worn leather jacket. Thumbing through his wallet to see how much cash he had left.

“All right,” Ann agreed. “Call me later, though.”

“I will. Bye, Ann.” He hung up and shoved his phone into his pocket again, trying to calm down and ease the guilty flush on his face.

Bobby leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees and fixed Sam with a stern gaze. “I can guess what that was about. Just don’t do anything without talking to Dean first.”

Sam dropped his eyes and traced his fingers along the spine of the book he’d been reading.

“He deserves to know.” When Sam still didn’t answer, Bobby growled, “If you don’t tell him, Sam, I will.”

Sam jerked his head up, frantic. “Don’t. I’ll tell him, but … later. After he’s relaxed a little.” When there was enough alcohol in Dean’s system to mellow whatever knee jerk reaction he was going to have to the news.

And as soon as he thought about actually telling Dean, Sam knew exactly how his brother was going to respond. Knew that whether or not Dean would have welcomed a claim on Sam before this happened, he’d be terrified of it now. Because he’d see this—see Sam’s ability to look inside him—as a violation. As being stripped naked and spread open in front of him.

Sam couldn’t blame Dean because he figured that was a pretty accurate way of looking at it. He suspected that if he focused hard enough he could see everything. Could see into the dark corners of Dean’s soul: the things that his brother kept hidden even from himself.

Did it run both ways? Could Dean see into Sam like that? For some reason, Sam didn’t think so. He was, after all, the one in the driver’s seat. He was the one who ‘owned’ Dean.

Sam sensed his brother striding down the hallway toward the living room and made himself smile. Did his best to think happy thoughts, just in case Dean was getting a steady flow of input. It would have been a hell of a lot easier if Sam had had any happy thoughts left.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean was pleasantly buzzed. He had drunk cautiously at first, not sure if the beers were going to make it more difficult for him to keep the memories—the self-doubt and the fear—out. But they had the opposite effect, swathing him in a blissful numbness despite the jangled ball of nerves sitting next to him and masquerading as his brother. Now he was on his seventh beer of the night and everything was fine. Everything was smoooooth.

Dean glanced to the side and found Sam frowning into his bottle. He rolled his eyes and ordered himself another beer. Passed the mostly-full bottle he was holding to Sam.

“Drink up, man.”

Sam’s lips twisted in an awkward smile. “I’m still working on mine, Dean, thanks.”

“Yeah, and you’ve been working on it for over an hour. Time to play catch up.” Dean tried fixing his brother with a serious stare and hoped that the fact that Sam seemed to be in two slightly different places at once didn’t lessen the effect any. “You better be done with both of those by the time I down this one.” He took the beer the bartender was holding out and slapped a five down on the table. “Thanks.”

He raised the bottle to his lips—or tried to, because it was gone before he had finished navigating the distance. Dean blinked down at his empty hand in confusion. Where the hell had his beer gone?

“I think you’re just about done,” Sam said. Dean blinked over at his brother and saw Sam putting his beer— _Dean’s_ beer—down on his far side.

And Dean was all for Sam loosening up finally and having something to drink, but Dean had already sacrificed one of his bottles for the cause. He leaned over Sam, reaching for the beer, and Sam held him back with one hand on his chest.

“Give it back,” Dean muttered indignantly.

“You’ve had enough, Dean,” Sam told him. Then caught him as the barstool—treacherous bastard—decided to jump out from under him.

Dean scowled at his brother. “Fuckin beer thief. Give it back, Sammy.”

Sam’s lips pressed together, the prissy jerk, and he shook his head. “I don’t think so.” Then he stood up, bringing Dean with him. “Come on, we’re going.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Dean sniped, and then blinked. “Dude, did I actually just say that?” Maybe he was thinker than he drunk he was. Heh.

Reluctantly, he let Sam lead him out to the Impala. He really didn’t want to go back to Bobby’s. The only thing waiting for him there was his damned bed. Was sleep. But when he squinted at the clock on the dashboard, he could see that it was already eleven. Which meant that his carriage and horses were about to turn into a rotten pumpkin and a couple of plague-carrying rats, so Sam was probably right to pull him out of the bar. Stupid fucking demon.

Sam was quiet on the drive back to Bobby’s: withdrawn. But as drunk as he was, Dean could practically hear the gears in his brother’s head turning: knew without a doubt that Sam had something to say and was being too much of a pussy to just come straight out with it. So when Sam pulled into the driveway, turned the Impala’s engine off and just sat there, Dean didn’t move either.

“Come on, dude, out with it,” he said blearily. “I’m not too shit faced to see there’s something going on.”

Sam traced his hands anxiously over the wheel. “Maybe this should wait until you’ve sobered up a little.”

Dean snorted. “I’m fine. Sharp as a butter knife. Just tell me already.” He lurched forward and tapped the clock on the dashboard. “Unless you want to wait until morning: we’re running out of time here.”

“No. I should—if I don’t tell you tonight I’m gonna lose my nerve.” Sam took a deep breath and then just laid it out there. “I know what the ritual did, Dean.”

“I’m guessing there’s not going to be beer and candy in this explanation,” Dean muttered, trying to sound relaxed. He clung to the fuzzy, alcohol-induced shield around his head desperately. Felt the sudden fear start to sober him despite his best efforts.

Sam bowed his head, practically tucking his chin into his chest, but when he spoke his words were clearly audible. “The claiming ritual we did that night in the barn linked us together. Linked our souls together. And before you yell I didn’t know until a few weeks ago when I went to see Missouri. She’s the one who told me.”

Dean bit back on the recrimination he had been about to shout and instead demanded, “What the hell does that mean?”

“It didn’t mean much until about a week ago, as far as I can tell. It’s how I knew you were in trouble in San Francisco, though. Probably also has something to do with how good we’ve gotten at hunting this last year.”

Dean nodded slowly. Yeah, he remembered a few times when he and Sam had been so in sync it had seemed like magic. Dean had half-joked with his brother about mind reading at the time, and now it seemed like he hadn’t been that far off. Which was freaky-weird, but not bad precisely. Especially not now, with the vague, drunken glow cushioning him.

“Okay,” he said, “But I still don’t see—”

“The ritual blew that link between us wide open, Dean,” Sam said, his voice flat and toneless. “The demon’s been using it to get at you. It’s been going through me and into your dreams.”

It took Dean a minute to work that through in his mind, and then he frowned. “Now hold on, Sammy, you don’t know—”

“I know, Dean!” Sam exploded, finally turning to him. “I know the link’s been blasted open because all of a sudden I can see inside you, and I know that the demon can use the connection between us to get to you because I talked to Ann and she confirmed it. So don’t tell me I don’t know.”

Dean’s head spun as he tried to think through the fog of alcohol. Tried to pick something to focus on. Ann. Nope, not going there. The demon. Okay, not much better. Still, the fact that it was using Sam like this wasn’t really surprising. Definitely its style. But really, hadn’t there been something else in what Sam had said—had confessed? Something new and troubling? After a moment of deliberation Dean figured out what it was and recoiled in horror.

“What the fuck do you mean you ‘can see inside me’?”

Sam pressed his eyes shut, looking pained. “I’m not doing it on purpos—”

“What the fuck!” Dean shouted, and he slammed his fists against the dashboard. Wished he’d had another three beers or so because that drunken daze? Yeah, not helping so much anymore. “How much, Sammy?”

“Dean, I don’t—”

“ _How much?_ ”

“I’m not rooting around in there, okay? I just catch things: things you’re concentrating on, shit like—” He stopped abruptly, mouth dropping, and Dean cursed himself. Cursed the beers for making it difficult to control his thoughts. Cursed Sam for wording it like he had because of course as soon as he’d said it, all of Dean’s nasty little secrets had turned into elephants in the room. Big, pink elephants with wings.

Sam pushed his door open and leaned out. Puked on the side of Bobby’s driveway. Dean slid across the seat and put one hand on his brother’s back, feeling the shudders run through him.

“Jesus Christ, Dean,” Sam moaned.

Dean didn’t know what he was talking about. Didn’t know which of the hundred crappy, horrible things Sam had latched onto. Didn’t know what to say: was too busy not freaking out about this. Too busy trying to stop thinking about all the sick shit that had happened to him: all the things he’d done. And the feathery bastard’s name was the refrain linking it all together.

 _… sliced her up Azrael pulled my insides out Azrael cut off his nose let him bleed to death Azrael flayed me over and over kept healing kept Azrael strangled his wife in front of him kissing close Azrael put the gun in my mouth smooth tastes like blood tastes like Azrael slit his throat blood in my mouth up my fucking nose …_

Sam spun around suddenly, grabbing Dean’s arms and digging his fingers in painfully. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ do that again!” he yelled. “You even _try_ it and I’ll—”

Dean wanted to apologize, wanted to ask which “that” Sam was talking about, wanted to run. But then the clock flipped over to midnight and sleep dragged him down into the demon’s waiting smile.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam was crying when he carried Dean inside ten minutes later. He couldn’t help it, with the horror of what he’d seen still coursing through him. All night long, the connection between him and Dean had been strengthening: maybe because Sam’s awareness of the link had stimulated it. And when he’d told Dean about the connection, had admitted how deep it went, it had been like Dean was screaming at him. Images filled him, flashing past too quickly for him to catch them all, but what he had seen was more than enough.

He didn’t know how Dean was still sane.

Sam had fumbled the door open—had to hurl—and then Dean’s hand was there. Drunk and pained and panicked, Dean was trying to comfort him through it. And Sam wanted to laugh and cry and punch his brother all at once because Dean shouldn’t be doing that. Dean should be curled up in a corner somewhere, Sam should be comforting _him_ , and everything was so fucked up that it left a bitter taste in Sam’s mouth.

For a brief, burning moment, Sam had hated their father: something he’d never quite dared to do before. He hated John for doing this to Dean. For raising him to think nothing of himself, and to put Sam first in all things. He hated himself for letting Dad do it, for letting Dean continue to do it in the years since Dad’s death. Hated Dean for not once even trying to stand up for himself.

The entire time, the images kept coming, more painful than any vision. Flashes of his brother being tortured: of Dean killing and torturing others. Then, sharp and searing, an image of Dean slipping his gun into his mouth. Tightening his finger on the trigger.

Sam spun and grabbed his brother. Dug his fingers into Dean’s arm hard enough to mark him. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ do that again!” he babbled. “You even _try_ it and I’ll—”

Then the hour had ended: one day turning over into the next. Dean slumped forward and finally, mercifully, the flood of images stopped. But Sam remembered. He couldn’t get the things he’d seen out of his head: they were seared onto his brain. His own private horror show.

Bobby jumped up when Sam came in with Dean cradled in his arms. It was more difficult to carry him that way—Dean wasn’t a small man—but Sam wasn’t going to throw his brother over his shoulder like a sack of meat. He couldn’t.

“What is it?” Bobby asked, his face pinched with worry. “Something else happen?”

Sam shook his head wordlessly without slowing. Brought Dean into the spare room and laid him gently down on the bed. Pulled off Dean’s boots and socks and then stripped him down to his boxers. Sam moved to pull the blankets up and then hesitated, looking down at his brother. Dean’s body wasn’t scarred enough for what he’d been through. Sam felt it should show, somehow.

Bobby had a glass of whiskey sitting on the table for him when he came back out to the kitchen. Sam drank it down in a single swallow, hating the burn but needing the relaxation that the liquor could bring. Bobby held the bottle out but Sam shook his head, setting the glass back down on the table. He wanted to calm down, not get so drunk he’d wrap the car around the first telephone pole he came to.

“You okay?” Bobby’s voice was low, as if he was worried about waking Dean, which was a fucking joke and a half. Dean would wake up at seven tomorrow morning, and not a second sooner, same as he had for the past ten days.

Sam forced himself to focus on Bobby’s question. “No,” he said hoarsely. “I’m really not.”

“What happened?”

“I told Dean about the link. And he panicked and I got a head-full of everything that’s happened to him that he didn’t want me to know about.”

Bobby didn’t understand the full import of that—couldn’t—but he still winced. “I’m sorry, Sam.”

“He tried to kill himself, Bobby,” Sam whispered. “Because of Az—of that thing I told you about. He mentioned it before, but I didn’t really—I didn’t understand. Not until tonight. Not until I _saw_ him put his own gun in his mouth and—” He cut himself off abruptly. Turned away from Bobby and brought the glass over to the sink, where he washed it with hard, jerky motions.

“Sam,” Bobby said slowly from behind him. “This trouble you were in—”

“We took care of it. It’s over.”

“So you and Dean keep saying. But I’ve been thinking, and the dates add up.”

Sam’s heart sped and he tensed. Oh Christ. Bobby had figured it out. Bobby had figured it out and Sam was unarmed: had his back to the man. Just when Sam thought that this day couldn’t get any worse.

“The Angel of Death,” Bobby continued relentlessly, “You and Dean took it out, didn’t you? That’s why it’s fallen off the radar.”

Sam bit his lip to keep a hysterical laugh from escaping. “Yeah,” he breathed. “We took care of it.” He thought of Azrael in its Rachel suit, lying on the barn floor with a jagged hole in its chest. Thought about the barn burning, flames hungrily licking at the dark sky. Dean curled up in the back seat of the Impala with the little girl in his arms.

“What was it? Some kind of demon-hybrid?”

Sam shook his head, shook the memories away, and turned around. Kept his face blank. “You don’t want to know, Bobby, trust me. And don’t—don’t tell Dean you know. Don’t bring it up with him.” _He’s been reminded of that fucking bastard enough._

“It got to him, didn’t it?” Bobby asked. His voice was soft, his eyes filled with compassion and not a little bit of pity, which Dean would have hated if he’d been here to see it.

“Yeah, it did.” The words were choked, full of Sam’s memories of that basement in Lawrence. Memories that had just been enhanced by Dean’s half-confused recollections of his side of that endless phone call. Sam had gotten the impression that Dean didn’t remember much of that particular punishment. He’d been too overloaded on pain to understand what was happening. Small fucking mercy.

Bobby nodded gravely. “I won’t bring it up if he doesn’t,” he agreed.

Which would happen right about never. Sam relaxed slightly as it finally sunk in that Dean was safe from this danger, anyway, but he couldn’t help thinking that this conversation had just used up the last of their luck. Still, Dean would be safe here. Bobby knew that Dean was in a bad way—knew he’d been hurt before any of this shit had happened. Bobby would take care of him, and do a better job of it than Sam had been managing lately.

Sam’s thoughts had obviously slipped onto his face because Bobby tipped his head back and eyed him with an unhappy expression. “You’re gonna leave, aren’t you?”

“Bobby, I have to. I—”

“Fuck ‘have to.’ You don’t ‘have to’ anything.” Bobby scowled. “You do realize what that’d do to Dean, don’t you?”

“Help him,” Sam answered instantly. “Ann—the woman I talked to on the phone earlier—told me I was probably right about the demon. About it using me. Distance might help weaken the link between us.”

“That ain’t enough,” Bobby told him. “Dean needs you here, Sam. He doesn’t need you running off out of some misguided, damn fool notion that might— _might_ , Sam—help him a little with these dreams.”

“Maybe not, but I also have a lead. Ann gave me the name of a man she thinks might be able to help break the link.”

“Take Dean with you, then,” Bobby insisted. “He won’t be any worse off there than here, and a damned sight better if he’s with you, if I know him at all.”

 _I can’t, Bobby. I can’t because as soon as he wakes up, those flashes are gonna start coming again, and I can’t see any more. I can’t take it. I’m sorry if that makes me weak, but if I have to see the rest of it, I think I might go crazy. And then who the hell is going to stop Dean from falling apart?_

“The man’s … shy,” Sam fumbled.

“He’s shy.” Bobby snorted, fixing Sam with a serious gaze. “You stop to consider what this is gonna do to your brother?”

Yeah, Sam had. Dean would be hurt: he’d be pissed off. But if Sam didn’t do this, then Dean was going to break. Because at some point, not even the threat of Sam’s safety—of Sam’s soul—was going to keep Dean from giving up. And Sam wasn’t going to let that happen.

“I have to, Bobby. It’s just … just for a few days.”

Bobby swore, and for a second Sam thought that the man was going to clock him one: knock him out and tie him up to keep him here. But Bobby only growled, “I ain’t lying for you, and I ain’t holding Dean here if he wants to go after you.”

“Fine.” Sam could deal with that. Best if Dean stayed here, but if he left Bobby’s, Dean would be able to take care of himself for a day or two.

And if Dean tried coming after him, Sam thought that he could shield himself well enough to keep Dean from tracking him through their connection. It seemed to be stronger running from Dean to Sam anyway. Maybe because of the ownership thing, or maybe because Sam’s inherent abilities were giving him a leg up on his brother, so to speak. Or maybe the link running from Sam to Dean was being clogged with something else. Something with yellow eyes and a too-wide grin.

In the end, Bobby let Sam borrow one of his cars. Probably because he thought that Dean would have an easier time following Sam if he knew what kind of car he was driving. But Sam had been raised by John Winchester too, and he could disappear if he needed to.

He could manage to keep away from his brother for the few days he needed, both to test his theory and to talk to the man who might be able to fix the mess Sam had gotten them both into. Corey Trankard would know how to sever the link: cut the demon off from Dean.

And, God help him, Sam needed those few days of distance to keep from going insane from what he’d just seen inside his brother’s head.

Just a little while on his own, and he would come back and apologize. He’d apologize for years if that was what it took: just as long as they _had_ years. As long as Dean was safe.

Bobby watched from the front door while Sam pulled away: a black shape outlined by the warm, orange glow of the house lights. Sam honked as he drove past the Impala down the driveway, but Bobby didn’t raise his hand to wave farewell. Sam felt the man’s disapproval lingering in the car with him all the way across the state line into Wyoming. But he could feel Dean dreaming a hell of a lot further than that.


End file.
